激光陷阱引导神经细胞生长方向的研究

The study of guiding neuronal growth direction with optical trap

激光陷阱技术是近年来发展起来的一种非接触的操纵技术,它在生命科学领域取得了许多开创性成果,作者用特别设计的倒置式激光陷阱放在生长锥的前方来引导生长锥的生长方向,通过对生长锥施以持续的作用力,作者在实验上成功地引导了神经细胞生长锥的生长方向,并讨论了激光陷阱引导神经细胞生长的分子生物学基础。对这种新的引导神经细胞定向生长的方法的研究,可能对神经轴突的定向生长机制、控制神经再生产生非常积极的影响。

Optical traps offer the unique ability to manipulate particles dispersed in a liquid medium without any mechanical contact. It can trap, move and position a wide variety of living cells and sub - cellular particles.The nature of the technique has led to its predominant use in the fields of medicine and microbiology. In this paper, an optical trap is used to guide neuronal growth. In order to guide the neuronal growth direction, a self- contrived optical trap was placed just in front of a specific area of the edge of the neuron. By exerting a persistent force on the whole growth cone, the authors have shown experimentally that they can use optical trap to guide the growth direction of a neuron. The principle of molecular biology for guiding neuronal growth with optical trap is also discussed in the paper. Guiding neuronal growth with optical trap may be very helpful for nerve regeneration and understanding the axone growth mechanism.